Should presidential candidates come clean about their litmus tests for SCOTUS nominees?
Hillary Clinton. JStone / Shutterstock.com
Hillary Clinton didn’t use the words “litmus test” on Monday when she explained the type of justices she would like to appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I will do everything I can,” Clinton said, “to appoint Supreme Court justices who protect the right to vote and do not protect the right of billionaires to buy elections.”
The billionaires comment was a reference to the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 Citizens United decision, which found that corporations have a First Amendment right to support political candidates with independent spending.
Some criticized the statement as a litmus test, leading the author of a Washington Post op-ed to wonder: So what?
“If Clinton wants to make Citizens United a litmus test,” the article says, “she should go right ahead. Litmus tests get a bad rap, but they might be just what we need.”
The makeup of the Supreme Court may be the most important issue in the 2016 election, says the author, Paul Waldman, a senior writer at the American Prospect and a contributor to the Plum Line blog. In Waldman’s view, candidates should be honest about the issues that will guide their Supreme Court appointments.
“The candidates should be honest and say: ‘Here are the three (or five, or ten) issues on which anyone I appoint to the Supreme Court must agree with me,’ ” Waldman writes. “At least if they were forthcoming, we’d know what we’re going to get, and everyone could vote accordingly.”
